6. Display Characteristics

Test technician Shelton Romhanyi provided two sets of charts, which this author took the liberty of setting to the same range equivalent for comparison’s sake. A different baseline had to be used in order to zoom in on a narrow range, because each monitor has a different brightness level.

The Alienware Area-51 m9750 display isn’t very bright, but its brightness level is relatively consistent. The brightest spot is almost circular near the center, with a range of 40 candelas per square meter and a 108 candelas/m2 mean.

Contrast measures the display’s ability to block light in relation to its lighting capability. The Alienware Area-51 m9750 display does fairly well, with a 475 candelas/m2 mean and 245 candelas/m2 range.

Let’s see how the Eurocom M570RU Divine-X stacks up.

The M570RU has a huge advantage over the Alienware m9750 in maximum brightness level, its 179 candelas/m2 mean beating the competitor by nearly 80%. Its brightest spot is also more stripe-shaped from the top to the bottom of the screen’s center.

The M570RU’s deviation from lightest to darkest portions is also higher, but doesn’t that usually happen when you turn the brightness up on a backlit display? Perhaps we should have re-measured it at a lower "similar-to-Alienware" brightness level to find out, because users are most likely to set a dim display to its maximum brightness and a bright display to a middle setting.

The Eurocom M570RU Divine-X also has more contrast than its Alienware rival, with a 559 mean level, diminished only slightly by a moderately broader 290 candelas/m2 contrast range.